Ridiculously Photogenic Girl: ICU patient Rachel becomes internet sensation with her hospital photo

A photograph of a woman recovering from a lung operation has gone viral after hundreds of thousands of viewers are clicking on to see Rachel, whose surname is not known, because she is ridiculously photogenic.

Rachel, 28, posted a photo of herself in hospital on the “Ask Me Anything” section of Reddit.

The young woman is pictured in bed in the ICU at the Cleveland Clinic, Ohio, after 60% of her lung was removed.

The army wife was diagnosed with congenital emphysema after contracting pneumonia.

Over 400,000 have seen the picture in just two days and it has been shared thousands of times.

In the image, Rachel is clutching a big fluffy heart that says “Lose 60% of her lung…wins 100% of my heart”.

Rachel, who uses the tag WhosThatGirl_ItsRach, says she is flattered by all the attention.

“People have been saying so many nice things about me the last few days,” Rachel told Yahoo.

“I’ve never felt more beautiful,” she said.

The attention is a boost to the patient who only a few days before the picture went viral was speaking openly about the pain she’d been experiencing on the website’s message board.

“They stopped my epidural for awhile [sic] yesterday. I wanted to die. My incisions and tubes and lungs were on fire. I wanted to scream but moving and making noise made it worse. I thought I was going to pass out from holding my breath. I’m scared right now,” she wrote.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m just SO afraid. It’s making me cry thinking about it. I feel so helpless right now. Yesterday was agony.”

Now Rachel is enjoying replying to more positive posts.

“Damn, I wish I had looked this good after my surgeries,” says one comment.

“As a woman my first thought was <<Fake. No one looks that good after surgery!>>. You are beautiful! Good luck with the recovery :)” said another.

Rachel’s ability to look fantastic despite the odds has her in good company.

The story is just like that of Zeddie Watkins Little who meant nothing to the average American until a picture of the 25-year-old was posted on the web as he ran a 10k run in March.

Next thing Zeddie Watkins Little, who is from Charleston, South Carolina, knew he was on morning television as “Ridiculously Photogenic Guy”.

“I find the humor in all of it, it’s funny. I feel honored to be part of a joke that’s in good spirits because the Internet can be a little vicious,” he said on the television show.

His photo was viewed on Facebook 1.25 million times in the two weeks after it was posted on the social networking site on March 31.